RapidDisk, A New Linux RAM Disk Kernel Module

Released last month was RapidDisk 1.0, which is a Linux kernel module that up to this point has received little attention on the Internet. RapidDisk is a new Linux RAM disk kernel module like the brd and zram modules, but with a different feature-set.

Petros Koutoupis is the developer of RapidDisk (also known as rxdsk) is designed for high-performance computing while being designed to be simple. RapidDisk can handle dynamically adding or removing RAM-based block devices of varying sizes, LZO data compression (still being implemented), and SHA-256-based error-correction.

RapidDisk is meant to be used for quick I/O storage (such as using a solid-state drive for the RapidDisk), application/database caching, file-system meta-data caching, virtualization, and as possible replacements to CompCache and CacheFS. RapidDisk volumes can also be easily exported as a physical device across a SAN or allocated as a SWAP space.

This kernel module isn't living in the mainline kernel tree (at least not for now), but is licensed under the GNU GPLv2 and its user-land utility goes for the GPLv3 license. More information on RapidDisk can be found from the 1.0 blog announcement and the project's Wiki.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the web-site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience and being the largest web-site devoted to Linux hardware reviews, particularly for products relevant to Linux gamers and enthusiasts but also commonly reviewing servers/workstations and embedded Linux devices. Michael has written more than 10,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics hardware drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated testing software. He can be followed via Twitter and Google+ or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.